Symbolism in "The Old man and the Sea"

1. Symbolism in The Old man and the Sea
Name: Jinal B. Parmar
Roll no.: 11
Paper no.: 10 The American Literature
M. A. Semester: 3
Year: 2014-15
PG Enrolment no: PG13101025
Email ID: jinal.parmar989883@gmail.com
Submitted to: Dept. of English
Smt. S. B. Gardi
M. K. Bhavnagar Uni.
Dt: 2/10/2014

2. Introduction:
The Old man and the Sea
• Written by Earnest Hemingway
•Published in 1952
• Story of Old man’s struggle and
adventure
• The short story concern an old
fisherman who battles a giant
marlin for three days and nights
• This novella was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953

3. What is Symbolism?
“Symbolism is the use of
symbols to signify ideas
and qualities by giving
them symbolic meanings
that are different from
their literal sense.”

4. Old man
Vs. Youth
Man Vs.
Nature
“He was an old
man who fished
alone in a skiff in
the Gulf stream...”

5. Symbols in the Old Man and the Sea

6. Symbolism in The old man and the sea
• This novella, the symbolism has far
deeper significance
• The book is representation of life as
struggle against unconquerable force
of nature
• In this novella Hemingway
symbolized person , place or thing to
represent the real meaning of his
writing
• In every day struggle of old man there is
deep meaning behind it
• Hemingway is very much connected
with the nature and he uses all nature in
this novella

7. Symbols in the novella:
The Lions
The
Marlin
The Sea
The Skiff
The Mast
Joe
DiMaggio
The Old
man
Menolin
The
Harpoon

8. The Lions
• Lions are the symbol of youth, Freedom
and Strength
• The novella begins with the dream of
Santiago whose dream of the lion on the
beach
• lion represent a hunter that is wild, noble
and manly, the King of that particular
environment
• The lions are a symbol from Santiago’s
childhood, he remembers seeing them on
the beach in Africa when he sailed there in
his youth
• The lions symbolize Santiago's lost youth
as well as his pride

9. The Marlin
• Marlin symbolized strength and
durability and putting up such struggle
• Marlin represents both the
perseveration of man´s social status
and his incessant life powers
• Santiago considered Marlin’s power
equal to him and called him brother
• The sharks run parallel to the
fisherman in the novel who judge
Santiago harshly
• Marlin also represent the “MIRROR
IMAGE” of Old man

10. The Sea
• The Sea represents the Universe and
Santiago's isolation in the Universe
• The Sea represent challenge and
endless “NATURE”
• The sea is presented as
ROMANTICIZED and FEMININE
both “Cruel and Cleansing”
• The symbolism of sea is also describe
as water, clear water is extremely good
and signifies clear thinking
• The sea also symbolizes the
swimming like swimming in dreams

11. The old man, Santiago
• In the novella Hemingway call
Santiago as old man and it has very
symbolic meaning that shows that he
has lost his youth
• The old man’s eye’s Blue color
represented the color of sea
• Old age, wrinkled skin symbolizes
human fate, human fate raised to the
level of suffering by cosmic processes
• Santiago’s shirt is also symbolic. It is
patched – patched sail looks like the flag
of permanent defeat.

12. Continue…
• Old man’s struggle represents and
compared with the struggle of Jesus
Christ
• Hemingway wrote that the sound
Santiago made while having the
cramps were the same as the reaction
“someone would have having a nail
passed through their hand and into
blood.”
• The biblical influence of the story
shows that the old man and Jesus
suffered in many of the same ways. The
old man was the fisherman of fish and
Jesus was the fisherman of souls.

13. Menolin
• Menolin is very symbolic character
• “The old man had taught the boy to
fish and the boy loved him”- symbolizes
as a Christ and one of his disciple
• Between Manolin and Old man there is
vast age differences between them its
symbolizes their skill of fishing
• Manolin is the symbol of hope
• Manolin would take care of the old
man when he said to him "Keep warm
old man. Remember we are in
September."

14. Joe DiMaggio
Santiago
• Santiago sees DiMaggio as an equal
heroic qualities
• symbolizes the indomitable will of the
human spirit.
• Santiago thought that DiMaggio
would understand him because of their
background being the same
• Joe DiMaggio also represents hope
that the old man has for Manolin.
• Santiago wishes that the boy will
grow up and be like the great DiMaggio
strong and young so that he will not be
a poor fisher like he is

15. The Skiff, The Mast and
The Skiff,
The Harpoon
• The skiff symbol of Santiago himself,
as Santiago struggle in his life, the
skiff also have to struggle in the sea
The skiff also symbol of the defeated
human beings.
• The mast is symbol of cross of Jesus
• The lost harpoon is symbol of loss of
power, strength, virility, pride.
Santiago loses his harpoon-the first of
many such losses as he continues a
futile battle with sharks.

16. Conclusion
• In this novella there are many
symbols
• In the Old Man and the Sea we
find that the symbolism of
Hemingway has far deeper
significance than in the early novel
• Hemingway’s use of symbolism, so
restrained and sparing that the he
cannot be included, with those who
are usually labeled as symbolist
VIDEO
The Old Man and the Sea Symbolism.mp4
The Old Man and the Sea Symbolism.mp4

17. Thank You….